Attendance & Punctuality

Good attendance at school supports your child to have the best chance of success.  It is important for learning and academic progress, wellbeing and social interaction and helps to create a personal sense of belonging.

As the image below demonstrates, our students’ attendance at The County High School, Leftwich is directly linked to GCSE progress. Students with above 95% attendance really do have the best chances of success.

Regular and punctual attendance not only ensures the continuity of and access to substantive teaching and learning, but minimises disruption to individual lessons and collective programmes of study.

What does Good Attendance look like?

If a student does not attend school or is not taking part in an approved educational activity, they are classed as absent from school. This means that if your child is off school for any reason, even if they are ill or have medical permission to be off school, they are classed as absent.

Less than 95% attendance every year in school equals one GCSE grade dropped on average. Consequently, all students at The County High School, Leftwich should aspire to achieve 100% attendance, if they are to fulfil their learning potential. Good attendance is also useful preparation for the workplace, where an absence rate of 5% or above would be considered a cause for concern.

PLEASE BE AWARE – Even if an absence is authorised attendance is still affected.

At The County High School, Leftwich we are committed to sustained, high year-on-year attendance.  We believe our parents/carers are key facilitators in ensuring students are encouraged to have strong attendance and punctuality.  In short, the importance of your role cannot be overstated.

Processes

Electronic registration enables our staff at all levels to contribute to a culture that is responsive to and rewards positive attendance. More importantly, accurate registration information provides an early warning system for use in intervention and support for those students and families for whom poor attendance is an emerging or ongoing problem.

We have a legal responsibility to complete formal registrations for the morning and afternoon session of school, in order to meet statutory responsibilities to parents/carers and other agencies in providing accurate punctuality information about individual students and school cohorts.

Is My Child Too Ill for School:

It is usually appropriate for parents and carers to send their children to school with mild respiratory illnesses. This would include general cold symptoms: a minor cough, runny nose or sore throat. However, children should not be sent to school if they have a temperature of 38°C or above. 

Please seek reassurance from the NHS ‘Is my child too ill for school?’ guidance for further information. 

Reporting Absence:

We ask you to contact the Pastoral Office directly (01606 333313) to explain a student’s absence. We kindly request you do this before the start of the school day at 8:45am.

Monitoring and Rewards

Attendance and punctuality are regularly rewarded with a combination of Achieving Excellence points and ‘prize draw’ initiatives for students with 100% attendance.

Unavoidable Time Off

We ask our parents/carers not to keep students off school unless the absence is absolutely unavoidable. Where this is the case please can parents/carers:

• Contact school on the first day of absence to provide a reason for non-attendance.
• Request leave of absence in term time for exceptional circumstance only by completing a form.
• Work with the school and any other agency to resolve any difficulties which may affect regular school attendance.

Holidays During Term Time

At the County High School, Leftwich, we do not expect holidays to be taken in term time as this has an impact on students’ progress.

Leave of absence can be requested, however please note that the Department for Education does not consider a need or desire for a holiday or other absence for the purpose of leisure and recreation to be an exceptional circumstance.

If you choose to take a holiday with your child during term time, the Local Authority will be informed and a Fixed Penalty Notice will then be issued in accordance with section 444 of the Education Act 1996. The law stipulates that the current penalties payable by parents are £160 if paid within 28 days reducing to £80 if paid within 21 days per parent/carer per child.

Please be aware that there is a new national limit of 2 penalty notices that can now be issued to a parent for the same child within a rolling 3-year period.  If a second Fixed Penalty Notice is issued to the same parent for the same child, within three years of a first Fixed Penalty Notice, the second Fixed Penalty Notice is charged at a flat rate of £160 if paid within 28 days.